


Numbers

by Leonawriter



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Amnesia, Clones, Experimentation, Flashbacks, Gen, Post-Dirge of Cerberus, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resurrection, of a sort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-06 23:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: Sephiroth comes to in the presence of scientists, and when AVALANCHE discovers him, he soon finds out that his issues with remembering simple things was far more intrinsically linked to his continued existence than mere disorientation.





	1. Chapter 1

_Numbers_.

When Sephiroth had come to, he had stumbled into the arms of someone in a white coat, and his eyes, too sensitive, had stung from the too-bright lights.

_“....showing some signs of awareness...”_

Awareness slipped through his fingers like a spilled potion, just as easily and just as uselessly.

_“...ure someone contacts threat management before....”_

The last thing he saw was the fact that his hands were bare, and that something seemed to have been written on his left hand.

His vision blurred before he could read it.

...

The next time, he becomes vaguely aware that he’s sitting down, and that his arm is strapped to a chair, and there is a needle in it. He can’t see, but he soon realises that this is because his eyes are closed, not because he is blind - he has been blinded by status effects before now.

The voices he can hear are saying familiar-sounding things, but that does not make them feel _safe._

Safety is the quiet of his rooms at Shinra. The cold steel of Masamune.

He hears an incessant beeping, which he hadn’t noticed before, increase.

_“Damn, his heart rate’s increasing! This is the second time this week!”_

Doctors. 

_Scientists._

Part of him wanted to tear at his restraints, while the part of him that had control, was seemingly the same that had been taught to stay still around needles, because otherwise Hojo would simply redo things from the beginning.

It was safer and simpler to just wait it out, and let it happen.

He closed his eyes again, but continued to hear frantic scientists rushing around, shouting at each other about threat levels until he felt another prick on his skin.

...

_The first thing he noticed was the fact that this woman, too, was wearing a white lab coat, although the way she looked at him was different from all of the scientists he had encountered in his brief moments of lucidity._

_She drew closer, taking hesitant steps - and again, there was difference, because unlike the ones that he heard, that had restrained him, she... did not exactly look as though she feared him, exactly._

_Then finally, she looked up, and he was startled by how familiar she looked. There was something there - in her facial structure, perhaps. Her hair, despite its colour._

_Could it be that this woman was his mother? He didn’t think that he had ever seen her before, although if this were true, then he must be in the lifestream._

_“....Jenova?”  
_

_Yet the word, once spoken, sent a searing pain through his head, a feeling of something wanting to burst out, and he clutched at it in agony._

_He felt hands around his shoulders, warm and comforting, and then one moved up to his head, making soothing motions._

_"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so... I'm so sorry. Every time I try to help... to help someone I care about... I just end up making things worse. I shouldn't have interfered, but now... I'm so sorry."_

_It was strange. something told him that this wasn't - quite - the lifestream. But when he tried to understand how he might know that and not feel as though he were merely hoping, his head felt as though it might split apart._

_"I'm so sorry," he heard her say again, and the apology felt like a bitter medicine._

_He wondered why he felt as though he should be apologising to her, when he couldn't recognise her at all, past the familiarity of her features._

_..._

The next thing he heard was the sound of gunfire, and perhaps it might be considered strange that he found it a relief, but compared to the doctors and scientists, gunfire was something that he could handle. It wasn't safe, but then neither was he - and he had been  _born_ to fight, to defend himself, to kill.

 _Created to,_ some inner part of him corrected, and he stumbled, his eyes fuzzing out at the edges of his vision, having to clutch at the table he had been on in order to keep his balance.

The first major disadvantage he had was that the only weapons he could find were the medical implements that the scientists had been using. All small, fine instruments, mostly used for collecting tissue samples, if his memory was reliable in  _that_ , at least, like he was starting to suspect that it was  _not_ reliable in some other areas.

The second major disadvantage was the lack of materia, even support or recovery, in the room, despite the fact that everyone there seemed to have dropped everything in their... impromptu evacuation.

Another gunshot fired off, this time not too far away.

He was made painfully aware of the fact that he had barely any clothing on, let alone no  _armour_ \- all he had was the equivalent of an old-style nightgown. Not too dissimilar to what they put on medical patients on a long stint in the wards, then. 

The only thing on his side was his natural enhanced strength, which was currently not as it should be due to the sheer amount of time he must have been under their...  _care._

The door burst in with a loud noise, and he grasped at the closest thing to hand that was sharp, before noticing who it was who'd come in, and trying to dampen the feeling of pressure in his head telling him  _you should know who this is, don't try telling yourself you can't._ Forced himself to stay breathing evenly, even though he was far from calm.

"Damn, what the  _hell?!"_ For a moment more, they stared at each other. Sephiroth in his hospital shift, and the large man with the gun arm who must have been responsible for at least part of the noises he'd heard earlier, that had woken him up from his mental drifting. "Someone get Cloud! One of these damn things is up and about - number seven, this all says!"

A white hot anger grew inside of him at the words, counteracting the needle-sharp fear that had come up in the midst of what the man was saying. It was far easier to focus on anger than fear.

"I..." his throat was sore, and his voice rusted from lack of use. The man pointed his gun arm at him, and he simply continued to glare until he recovered his strength to continue speaking. "I have a  _name,"_ he said at last. "I am not... simply some  _number."_

The man shot him a strange expression, but kept his weapon aimed in his direction all the same.

"Yeah? Good for you." 

It sounded as though the man had meant the words to be flippant, but Sephiroth could tell that he was  _unnerved._

Something about him was deeply unnerving everyone who he encountered, from the scientists who had sought to control him, to the one who had defeated the scientists.

"Barret? Everything okay?"

Sephiroth tensed at the new voice, the pressure in his head building to the point where it was beginning to create a nausea in his stomach that he had not felt since he had been twelve years old on the battlefields of Wutai, smelling blood and dead bodies for the first time.

All of his instincts were telling him to  _run_ , that this was an encounter he could not survive in this state, without a weapon, and he didn't  _understand_ -

"Yeah, you tell me, Spike. I mean, look. He ain't done nothin' other than say he ain't just some number, but it's definitely him. Looks like it to me, at least, but you'd know better."

Blond hair. Black clothes, like a SOLDIER First Class, off enough to perhaps not be but close enough to be one of those who, like he and Genesis, had taken liberties with their uniforms.

Buster-style sword in hand, but  _not_ Angeal's-

_-which hadn't been with Angeal for some time, it was Zack's now-_

_-and hadn't been with Zack either, he never had found out what-_

- _his blood, on that sword, on the ground-_

"Cloud?"

The name came out more as a breathless rasp in the wake of remembered wounds that he  _still could not understand_ , and he barely even knew how he knew the name.

Cloud's eyes narrowed, and he nodded - to Barret, Sephiroth could only assume because his gaze didn't leave Sephiroth's own eyes.

"It's him. Somehow. He's... different, but it's still Sephiroth."

Barret swore again, worse than before.

Sephiroth saw Cloud reach for something, and his mind shut down once more, only remaining conscious long enough to think  _oh, he must_ _have only cast Sleep._

...

Cloud watched as Sephiroth's body fell limply to the floor, the scalpel the clone was holding somehow falling and sliding far enough away that it didn't slice him open on the way down, which Cloud should probably have made sure of before casting the spell, but it was too late to worry about that now.

"Well, that was easier that it coulda been. Dunno about you, but I expected there to be some grand fight like there always is, when you two get together."

"...yeah," he said, moving forward at last, crouching down to get a closer look. "I thought so too, the moment I realised that was what I was feeling."

It was eerie, how identical the clone was. And it  _was_ a clone - not a copy, or anything like what Hojo had attempted with  _him._ And yet, there were uncomfortable differences. 

The way that this Sephiroth seemed so much more  _real_ than the one he'd become used to.

"Like  _that_ ain't creepy enough."

Cloud sighed, and shrugged.

"I couldn't feel... Jenova. Or, it's still there, it has to be. But whatever happened, it's not... doing anything. Like it's dormant."

"Dormant or not, I still don't get why that guy's not  _dead_ now."

Good question.

"I probably should have, shouldn't I." And yet... "I couldn't." It was a good thing he wasn't looking in Barret's direction, or he'd have had to hide his face, because he felt like next to  _I let Sephiroth live_ , nothing he said would be worth much. "He was...  _terrified_. And." That one thing that had been clawing at his mind ever since Reeve had told them about this place on information given to  _him_ by the Turks, who for once had been completely on their side - a rare thing, even after the Remnants, and even after Deepground. "He's been  _numbered."_

He reached out, and hesitated. Sephiroth had been a project before, so that didn't necessarily mean anything, but...

Even so, Cloud wanted to know what was going on here, and he couldn't do that with Sephiroth dead.

Pushing past his indecision, he picked the still form off of the floor, telling the incredulous Barret on the way out that it wasn't as though he'd trust anyone  _else_ with this, and he'd cast Sleep again the moment felt so much as a twitch.

...

He's just finished polishing Zack's Buster Sword in the Church having needed to do _something_ to get his mind off of the clone of the man he'd killed three times now, when he turns around toward the flowers and the water, and sees her there.

Aerith... looks just like he remembers her, the first time they met, tending to the flowers. The main difference is that she doesn't look quite real, not all there, a little too perfect.

She looks up at him, and smiles.

"You don't need to worry," she said. "There isn't some kind of big world-saving emergency again. Not this time, at least. I just thought I'd say thank you."

He takes a couple of steps toward her, not sure what she means, before it strikes him.

"Was that... you?"

"Me? Oh, not really, no." Aerith gained a somewhat fond, nostalgic look on her face. "I think Jenova's learned something, though."

Cloud frowned slightly, not sure that was definitely a good thing.

"And... what might that be?"

"Never try taking someone's child from them on their home turf. Lucrecia's quite the force to be reckoned with, when no one's got anything over her anymore, and she's more angry than upset. It really was amazing to watch."

He felt his eyes widen in disbelief - and yet, if it was Aerith saying it, it had to be true.

Not counting the times when, while she'd been alive, she'd spun tales about the slums and her powers that had left them all hanging onto her every word for sometimes days on end, before she finally relented and admitted she'd been having them all on.

"I should tell Vincent about that," he said. The ex-Turk would probably appreciate the story, and so would Shelke, for that matter.

Aerith laughed. The sound made Cloud's heart ache just as much as it made him feel like nothing could possibly go wrong.

He closed his eyes for just one moment, and when he opened them, she was gone again. But the Church didn't feel empty - just like always, he could still feel her there somehow, in the water and the plants, and his memories of Zack over at the front with his sword.

...

Waking up the next time felt far more like what he associated with  _waking up_ , rather than emerging from a mind haze. He was lying on something soft, with something heavy yet warm on top of him, and he could hear no one. It was  _quiet._

For a moment, he couldn't think of how his circumstances had changed, other than the possibility that everything had simply been some form of nightmare, and he would awaken at an inn, on a mission.

Then he opened his eyes, and the mark bearing the number  _VII_ on his left hand was still exactly where he'd left it.

Not a dream, then. But at least his circumstances were better than before...

He sat up. Someone was coming.

The door opened, and he felt disquieted to realise that he had somehow known that it would be Cloud before he had even heard the man's footsteps-

_"Cloud. I knew you'd come."_

"I wondered if you'd be waking up soon," Cloud said, either oblivious to or ignoring Sephiroth's discomfort from hearing his own voice say something he did not remember saying. "I wanted to hear your side of the story. What you remember happening."

Sephiroth frowned slightly, but accepted that, whatever was going on, Cloud was most likely the leader, and that this was probably not much different to delivering his reports to Lazard. They were even both blond, he noted to himself, slightly amused.

"I can't say that whatever I know will be of much help," he admitted. "My memory is... somehow broken. I can remember things unbidden, but certain things seem to trigger... responses. Painful ones."

Cloud seemed to take some time to think on that, watching his every move as he did so.

"You remember me," he said eventually.

"...yes." Sephiroth inclined his head somewhat, which had the side effect of having his hair hide his face. "Or at least your name, and some... flashes."

Either that was the wrong answer, or Cloud had simply not liked what he had heard. Which was none of his business, as long as-

Cloud's sword glinted off of the hall light at an angle, and Sephiroth felt that same nausea from the last time he remembered being awake rise up.

"You're... afraid. Of me.  _Why?"_

As if he had no reason to be. As if one had to ask.

"One of the few things I remember clearly even now, is being struck by that blade, and by extension you... when I have a clear knowledge of the fact that there were no other SOLDIERs who could have possibly matched my level. The fact that I could have been wounded by you in such a way should be cause for respect, but for two things - the fact that I continue to be unarmed, and the fact that I also continue to have no understanding of  _why."_

When he looked up, Cloud looked away. Frustration made Sephiroth glare, wishing that he could just be given  _answers._

"Aerith... thinks you're worth saving." Which - wasn't the answer he was looking for. But it instead answered something that he hardly even had the right  _questions_ for. "Her, and Lucrecia."

He blinked. The name  _Aerith_ brought forth a surge of confusing emotions that he didn't think he could deal with right now. And the name  _Lucrecia-_ it meant something, he was sure. But he had no idea  _what._

"She's your mother," Cloud said bluntly, startling him. "Not Jenova.  _She_ is. Though if you want to know anything else, Vincent'd know better than me about that."

 _Lucrecia..._ his  _mother's_ name. Not Jenova. 

_"Every time I try to help... to help someone I care about..."_

"I saw her," he realised. "She apologised, and I didn't know why. I thought she must have been... Jenova."

In his defence, she hadn't given him her name. 

"Cloud," he said, as the SOLDIER seemed to be moving back to the door, "I don't know what they were doing with me there. Or where my clothes or equipment is. I thought at one point that perhaps Hojo might be involved, but I never saw him."

He somehow  _felt_ Cloud tense at the name, which was both unexpected, and natural.

"Hojo's dead. He has been for years now. He tried to come back a couple years back through Synaptic Net Dive tech, but we got rid of him then, too." A relief settle around his shoulders like the knowledge was the comforting blanket he'd woken up covered by. "The scientists back there, though... they were researching  _clone_ technology." 

A shiver ran down Sephiroth's spine, and he glanced sharply at the number  _VII_ on his hand.

"Then I am...?"

_Nothing but a copy. A puppet._

_Poor little Sephiroth._

"Yeah." For one detached moment, Sephiroth stopped breathing. No wonder his mind was in turmoil. No wonder he had  _nothing_. None of it was  _his._ "But apparently, you're the only one who ended up with a  _soul_. It was... pretty disturbing, actually. The others were just... empty. For once I had nothing against going with one of Genesis' plans to just burn the place down."

His mind, which had been on the brink of shutting down, had one last thing to latch onto.

"Genesis?"

Cloud paused again.

"Ah, yeah. He was going to come down here anyway, sooner or later. I'll tell him you asked, though."

 _"You will rot_. _"_

He winced, in time with the door closing shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Entirely inspired by a fic I started reading that was written mostly pre-Advent Children, I wanted to do my own take. 
> 
> Sephiroth's still in shock - no, not just emotional, but also psychological and medical. That's one reason why he isn't as pro-active.
> 
> Lucrecia is crystalised in lifestream, making her caught somewhere between life and death. I've taken it that she's capable of freeing herself - if she feels that she wants to enough. Sephiroth, being as he was, was caught somewhere between life and death, not really dead in some ways and certainly not alive. What Lucrecia hadn't been able to influence in the past, she saw an opportunity and took it.
> 
> No, Genesis, you do NOT get to say that arson is the best solution to everything, even if you DO see empty shells of yourself and the people you've known, including Angeal. Although in this case, it was actually the answer.
> 
> Given how interesting this AU is - and how I'd write more but I'm too tired to right now - I'm gonna say this isn't the end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things are clarified, both for Sephiroth and also the reader. And yet, as is evident because of these things, he continues to be an unreliable narrator.

Cloud comes by another couple of times - both times bearing small amounts of simple, easy to eat food - and perhaps it's due to the fact that the room that he is in has neither windows nor a timepiece, but his internal clock is still unable to tell if it happens to be day or night or anywhere in between.

Then again, with what he was told, what he had known was true from the moment he had heard the words from Cloud's mouth, the possibility remained that  _this_ body had no internal clock system yet, that it would need to be trained into understanding such simple things as if for the first time.

Every so often, he heard voices coming from outside, sometimes ones that had him sure that he should know them, others that he had no familiarity with whatsoever. All were muffled by walls and distance, even with his naturally enhanced hearing.

Solitude brings about the ability to take apart what has been happening to him,  _done_ to him, which memories he can access without the pain threatening to split him apart, spots dancing across his vision.

Cloud hadn't exactly talked to him, much less spent very long at all in his presence, since the first visit. He'd said a few words, and on the second time he was graced with the blond's presence he'd been gifted  _clothes_. Nothing special, or familiar, but better than what he'd had, which was  _all_ that he'd had.

Footsteps were now coming steadily but confidently toward the room he was being detained in, and then stopped outside of the door. The lock was undone, and then, the door swung inward.

The person who came in had wild, waist-length red hair that seemed to sometimes only be obeying gravity due to length, and was wearing a threadbare, obviously patched up coat. Other than that, the general look of him seemed to suggest SOLDIER in some way, much the same way that Cloud had.

He noticed a rip, a tear in the fabric of the coat that hadn't been mended but rather had seemed to have had the edges softened off somehow, when his new visitor turned to close the door behind him.

Something about the hole in the coat set him on edge, but other than that and a faint feeling of unease as though he was  _forgetting_ something, he felt nothing else.

"My, my... so Cloud really was telling the truth. The great Sephiroth, laid low at the whims of scientists. Although I suppose that wasn't new even before, was it?"

The  _voice_.

He glared at the man's features, noting the way that his eyes glowed a steely blue, the nose, the cheekbones, the single earring that glinted off of the light when it moved-

"Genesis."

He remembered Cloud's words, the first time they'd spoken, after he'd woken up here.

_"Ah, yeah. He was going to come down here anyway, sooner or later. I'll tell him you asked, though."_

His mouth went dry.

"I- remember. The last time I saw you, I told you to rot."

And then... nothing. Or rather, if he tried to push further, past that one glimpse, his mind punished him and made him relieved that he had been able to move around at least somewhat, so that he by now had the strength to find a bucket or, if that failed, make his way to the bathroom before his bed was covered in vomit.

"As you can see," Genesis said, now coldly compared to the mocking tones from before, "that is far from the case. I am no longer even degrading, no thanks to you."

 _Degrading..._ something about that was  _important_. 

His frustration over his inability to remember, and his inability to  _do_ anything, made him wish that there was something he could do, some way he could relieve his stress. 

Memories formed more of emotions than anything told him of kata that he had once danced to with the weight of his sword in his hand. Masamune, however, was not here, and he doubted that they would give him access to it.

"You seem to be under a mistaken assumption. I may have some memories, I may  _look_ as you expect I should... and yet, according to Cloud, I am nothing more than a clone." He paused, focusing on making his message known, clearly. Not paying attention to the shocked and disturbed expression on Genesis' face, that seemed to border on disgust. If that was how it was to be, then so be it. "I therefore cannot be anything more than an inferior  _copy_ that you found."

"You think you know anything about  _copies_ , Sephiroth? You think  _that_ is all that you are?" No, not just disgust. There was  _anger_ there, too. _He always did get angry easily._  "Copies... clones  -those are things that are  _controlled_ by the original. They might look the same, but they have their own idiosyncrasies, their own  _quirks._ You can't make someone into a Copy who works best with an axe and expect them to fight as well with a sword. It simply won't happen. Trust me, I  _know_."

Something about the information felt true, but no matter how much hope he had for another sliver of memory to surface, nothing came.

"Then what  _am_ I? I can remember- I shouldn't be alive, and yet, here I am."

Genesis snorted, sending several strands of red hair flying upwards before falling back over his nose at a more sedate pace, eyes going half-lidded.

"That would make both of us, then.  _My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath found salvation at the end of my journey... and your eternal_ _slumber_. I suppose that could ring true for either of us, now."

For a single moment, the air was still.

"LOVELESS, Act Four."

Genesis' eyes snapped open, fixing him under their gaze and seeming to search him for - something. 

"You remember."

It felt almost as though he were re-enacting something, rather than conversing, letting his mouth run by reflex.

"How can I not, when you've beaten it into my head." Genesis' eyes, now wide, continued to watch him. He frowned, as flashes of...  _something_... ran through his mind. "We fought. But I didn't want you dead." He tilted his head, picking at something that wouldn't let go of him until he had addressed it. "You shoulder. Is it...?"

A gloved hand went to the shoulder that he remembered having been injured - almost an unconscious action. 

"Cured, now. So, you really  _do_ have memory issues. But you're _definitely_ Sephiroth." Disgust and shock had both faded, and in their place was an odd sense of shared discomfort, although he wondered if it were for the same reasons. As well, Genesis seemed suddenly uncomfortable, needing to move, as though the room was too small.

"Some things are easier than others," he allowed. "Although it is easier if I am not... actively  _trying_ to remember. Also, most of the time it feels more like they're things that happened to someone else, rather than... me."

The sensation of cold steel biting into him, not just once but countless times in countless places but always the same blades and always the same face with blue eyes and blond hair delivering the blows-

Those, were harder to feel a disconnect from.

Genesis stopped the agitated movements he'd been caught up in, and then leaned his back against the wall.

"I'd hardly say that's proof that they belong to someone else," he said airily. "From what I can see, you're different from how you were. Or at least, looking at things differently... context is important." He gave Sephiroth an odd look, one he didn't know how to decipher. "We aren't confined to one role, no matter what we may wish."

Sephiroth looked away, feeling unable to match what Genesis was seeing - just as as he had felt an imposter before, now he simply felt  _reduced_.

"Somehow... I don't think that I did very well at being the hero everyone seemed to think I was."

Genesis stared at him for a moment, and then started to  _laugh._

"Perhaps neither of us were much better than the other, then," he said, with a smile still on his face, full of teeth and nostalgia. "I have it on high authority that I wasn't the hero I seemed to think I was, either."

Sephiroth looked back, considering what he knew of Genesis from the few clear memories he had, and the man before him now.

"You really have changed."

He was given a sharp look, and the restless energy that had dissipated before seemed to have returned, a red glove finding the door handle.

"All of us have," was all the response he got before the door swung open, and he was left alone again.

...

He dreamed of villages burning, when he could no longer stay awake. Fear and pain and loss and heartbreak and pure rage enough to keep the fires burning coursed through him, mixing emotions that he was able to recognise as having possibly been his, sometimes definitely his, and ones that could easily have come from someone  _else_.

The fire burned, smoke was in his lungs, and somehow - impossibly - he was holding the sword that had impaled him.

_I will never be a memory-_

He woke up drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, blank grey walls looking back at him, and the only light coming from the hallway, shining through the underneath and window of the door.

...

Cloud came by again some time later, recognisable by the steady steps and the distinct sense of it being  _Cloud_. He brought with him several notebooks - some with plain paper, some with lined.

"The Reno made sure he got all the files and data from that place he could before we burned it down. Your medical files included. From the looks of things, you're... in late stage mako addiction. Your cells were built for it, pretty much, but it's still a shock to the system, no matter how adjusted you should be. That'll be why your head's such a mess, if I had to guess." He nodded at the notebooks. "Using those might help. Sort things out."

"Why."

"Last thing any of us wants is  _you_ mixing up who you were. And if we know what you remember, we can tell you if you've got things wrong."

That made sense. But it didn't give him the answers he wanted - that he  _needed._

"You could have let me burn," he said, eyeing Cloud while not fully looking at him straight on, images of burning villages flickering in his mind. "Is it pity? Because of my fear? Or foolishness, because I was unarmed and too weak to have made a fair fight?"

"That..." Cloud hesitated for just an instance, torn with indecision over something. "Neither. If anything, I just didn't want to turn into  _you_."

 _Ah,_ came the thought as he closed his eyes.  _I see._

Spite, then. Perhaps. Or some other goal.

"I don't think you get it," Cloud said, voice level. "Back then, I was... like this. My head was a mess. And you... you took advantage of that. Made me do things. When I walked in there, I realised that for once, I had the upper hand. I could have... I still could. But I won't, because I don't think I'd have been able to look myself in the eye again after, even if no one blamed me for it."

Sephiroth didn't realise that he had tensed until he felt the pain in his muscles, the sensation of his nails digging into the palms of his hands. 

Something about what Cloud had just said made him feel the same as he had when he had first come to, opening his eyes to doctors and scientists in lab coats, a needle in his arm.

"And so, you are keeping me."

"We don't trust you," Cloud said bluntly. "Plus, even if we wanted to get rid of you, we couldn't. You're still sick." He shook his head. "Besides, like I said before. Aerith thinks you're worth the effort, and I trust her. I figure, if you can prove her right... that'd mean something. So - don't let her down."

...

"It's damn creepy, is what it is," Barret says. They're in Seventh Heaven, but the bar is closed, because everyone's together - or most of them are, at least - and they're having lunch. "Don't get me wrong, but every time I remember he's in there, I just wonder why we took him outta that place alive and not in a body bag."

Cloud sighs. it takes two of the normal tables together to fit them all - he's next to Tifa, who's got Vincent next to her, and Yuffie's on his other side. Barret's the other side of Tifa, with Genesis opposite him and Nanaki sat up on the chair next to Barret.

Cid's one of the few who's not here, but that's just because he's busy working for Reeve, and Reeve's in his offices with Cait watching over the place where they'd left Sephiroth.

 _Sephiroth_. Alive, though suffering from mako addiction due to having been plucked out of the lifestream by ghosts and given some kind of second chance. He sometimes wondered  _why_ just like Barret himself, before reminding himself that leaving the man to die or worse at the mercies of the scientists not  _much_ better than Hojo, or killing him himself... 

He hadn't just made his promises to the others. He had promises he'd made to himself, as well. 

The air is awkward and tense. Even more so, after those words. At least the kids are out, so they didn't have to hear the adults talking like this. 

Genesis looks at him, glowing blue eye to glowing blue eye, and there's a sort of understanding, in the way that only two people who've known Sephiroth in such an intimate - compared to the rest of the world - way, could ever have.

It only lasts a moment, and then Tifa's hand is on his shoulder, potatoes forgotten.

"You've been there more often than you've been home, the past week," she says, and it's true. "He shouldn't have to be your responsibility."

He pushes his fork on his plate, keenly aware of everyone's eyes on him, and wishes he could look away, somewhere that didn't mean he'd bee looking at someone  _else_ he didn't want to answer to.

"But if he isn't mine," he says at last, quietly, "who'd do it? No one wants to, and I don't blame them. It  _is_ creepy... 'cause he's a clone, and he's so damn human." He shrugged. Not knowing what else to say. Shovelled food into his mouth.

He didn't want to admit the rest to the others yet. Not the fact that he was afraid, not the fact that the other day he'd woken up in a sweat from nightmares of Nibelheim and things he can't possibly have been through or felt because they weren't  _his_ -

It had just reinforced how opposite their situations were. How much control he had. That he didn't  _want._

"He said that he remembers telling me to rot," came Genesis' lilting tones, making even the disturbing words seem poetic.

The redheaded ex-SOLDIER smiles behind his glass of Banora White apple juice, and Cloud can recognise the mixture of bitterness and resentment and  _confusion_.

"Should've known you'd go visit," Barret says gruffly, and Cloud knew that his old friend was still often unsure where he stood with Genesis. Though Genesis bringing up his past as a  _friend_ of Sephiroth's did tend to make things tense, even at the best of times. "See?"

"And then," Genesis continued, "he later recognised which Act of LOVELESS I was referring to, and practically re-enacted an old conversation that  _I'd_ almost forgotten."

Barret stared, dumbfounded, and then started choking. Yuffie snorted, and began to laugh herself, because the idea of Sephiroth reacting in any way other than as the monster they'd known him as enough to act like that was, he had to admit, more than a it ridiculous.

Cloud shook his head, bemused.

It wasn't like he knew all that much about who Sephiroth had been before Nibelheim; perhaps he ha, before Hojo, but now most of what he knew was from afterwards, in the wake of swords and blood and mako and lifestream and wings and more blood. 

Whoever it was that he had been before, that wasn't the Sephiroth who had nearly killed him and Zack, and it wasn't the Sephiroth who'd called down Meteor and killed Aerith, and it wasn't the Sephiroth who'd come out of the lifestream and taken over his Remnant. 

But then, it looked like the Sephiroth who'd somehow  _come back_ \- Aerith had suggested that Lucrecia had something to do with that, but she probably wasn't acting alone, either - probably wasn't going to end up being  _either_ of the two men who'd come before him.

He stole a glance at Vincent, who had been more quiet than even his usual in all of this, only to find him eyeing everything vacantly, an expression of distant longing on what little he could see of the ex-Turk's face, of the kind he hadn't seen since they'd found Lucrecia's cave.

It wasn't the first time he thought,  _this would've been so much simpler if he'd just acted like we'd expected him to, and had to kill him back there to defend ourselves._


End file.
